The tale of Darth Padmé the Kind
by stirl999
Summary: Padmé Amidala, discovered and trained by Darth Sidious at an early age, looks to take on a new apprentice at the end of the events of The Phantom Menace.
1. Chapter 1

Content Warning: Anakin & Padmé's relationship will begin in this story before he comes of age.

Note: Padmé's age in TPM is 18 rather than 14 here so that she will have had more years of training with Sidious.

* * *

Anakin Skywalker couldn't help but run through the hallways of Theed Palace. Having slept in its massive confines for several days now, his young mind still could not fathom the size and scale of the building. Even though it was smaller than the Jedi Temple or the massive Senate complex, this palace was just so much more beautiful...so intricate, so ornate, so delicate...so Padmé. Behind him, one of her handmaidens, he thinks it's Saché, struggled to keep up with him. He knew he shouldn't run ahead of his elders, and he knew that Obi-Wan Kenobi, his new master, would likely scold his lack of etiquette, but Anakin didn't care. He was going to see Padmé, Force, from what Obi-Wan had already lectured him about attachments, he may not see Padmé ever again, or his mother, at least for years. Which meant that every extra second it took him to reach her was one second he would lose with her.

The doors to the throne room opened, and Anakin was barely able to stop himself before running into the very Queen he was so eager to see, shirking back in fear just as the handmaiden caught up to them, hyperventilating.

"Oh hi," he exclaimed, "I'm so sorry, Pad...your majesty."

"It's okay, Ani," the young Queen replied, giving the boy her warmest smile, the one that made his heart flutter from the moment he met her. "Saché, you can leave us."

"Yes, milady."

The brunette handmaiden bowed and bid her leave, and Anakin followed the Queen into the cavernous room. It was minimally furnished, Padmé never having a chance to really even decorate it before the Trade Federation invaded, but Anakin noticed nothing in his surroundings beyond his Queen, and maybe the majestic landscapes visible through the massive palace windows. He had seen her only twice since the crisis had abated. Both were sad occasions, one the funeral for Master Qui-Gon Jinn, who had given his life against the planet's Sith oppressor and the day afterwards, the burial of Naboo's own Senator Palpatine, the latter service with a closed casket seeing as there was not much left of his remains. Anakin mourned the man who had rescued him from slavery, but felt nothing the next day for a man he had never met, besides an odd feeling of relief. As he looked out the palace window, he saw below the same plaza where the funerals had taken place.

"So much has changed for you," he heard a soft voice say behind him, almost as if the Queen were talking about herself. "For all of us."

Anakin was glad that she was not wearing her ceremonial facepaint. He had still been shocked to find out that the girl he had befriended on Tatooine was a Queen, and while he was happy for her success and proud, in a way, of her for something she already was, a small part of his mind feared that the bond they had shared, born in secrecy and deception, would never be the same now that they both knew their true place in the galaxy.

Looking up sadly at the Queen, Anakin muttered unsurely, "I'm to begin my training with Master Obi-Wan today. He said something about a Padawan braid." He should have been excited, becoming a Jedi was something he had always wanted to do. So why was he so apprehensive about the whole thing?

"So you will," Padmé said. "This will be our farewell then."

It surprised him that Padmé was not excited for him. He dared to hope...maybe she cared for him, maybe she was sad that he was going to leave too?

"We'll see each other tomorrow during the celebration, won't we?"

"Yes, but you'll be a Jedi then. The Jedi do not believe in attachments. Your new master will tell you not to dwell upon my memory, and in time, you will forget me."

Anakin gasped, and he instinctively reached for his friend's satin dress before he pulled back, remembering his place. "I won't ever forget you, Padmé," he protested with every fiber of his being. "No matter what they tell to do, I won't."

"Me either, Ani," she said, eyes welling up. The tears were genuine, but she wondered how much of the truth she would reveal now. "I'll always remember everything you did for me and my planet. If our paths were to cross again..."

Padmé stopped, not able to bring herself to complete her sentence. She had foreseen that future, one where they would meet again as enemies, though she knew he would always come back to her. Anakin shuddered, sensing her fears and her agony. There was something she was not telling him, he knew. Did she not trust him, he wondered? She had kept her true identity a secret from him too, but that had not been a matter of trust, and neither was this, he sensed. It had something to do with the Jedi. With Obi-Wan. She did not trust them, he realized for the first time, and for reasons he could not fathom, Padmé feared what would happen after becomes a Jedi. Anakin looked away from the Queen. She was so certain, so decisive, enough to have freed her planet despite every odd stacked against her. Why did he sense such anxiousness and uncertainty from her now?

It dawned on him. "You sense something! Your dreams...you dream things too...?" It was impossible, wasn't it? She had more important matters on her mind...was it possible that she would bother to dream of anything involving him?

"In a way." It was remarkable to Padmé that the boy, so young and completely without training, could already be so naturally attuned to the feelings of those around him. She had sensed his power the moment their ship burst into the Tatooine system, long before her Jedi bodyguards had, and to seek its source had been the reason why she had insisted on accompanying them into Mos Espa. For such power, such potential to be wasted toiling in the Jedi Temple...she would not allow it.

"Once we part, things between us will never be the same." Seeing his incoming denial, she continued. "I know you don't believe it, but you will come to see me in a different way."

He closed his eyes, seeking his feelings, letting them tell him what Padmé's words weren't. It almost seemed too easy, as if she were broadcasting it to him. He opened his blue eyes and made a swift decision. "Because of the Jedi? Then I won't join."

That was too easy, Padmé thought. It was because of her, but not just that. It was the Force itself, commanding its two servants, the connection between them too strong to be broken so easily by the Jedi. Still, she had to walk him through this completely, and let it be his decision to make. If Anakin were to join the Sith, she would have him do it willingly, with full knowledge of what he was getting into. Unlike how Palpatine had lured her in.

"When I was twelve, I was elected Princess of Theed. The night before my oath, I had a dream. The galaxy was burning, whole worlds, trillions of people, of all species. You see, I went into politics then because I wanted to do good. I still do...I think. But in that dream, that nightmare, I watched the worlds burn, and I was completely helpless, and nothing I said, nothing I did, nothing I screamed, mattered. I saw a dark figure, and it got closer and closer to me, until I couldn't breathe. It suffocated me completely, and then...nothing."

She saw the piercing look from the young boy, as if what she described was something all too familiar to him. The Force clearly spoke much clearer, much stronger, to him in his dreams, but the mere fact that he had never known of anyone else with the same affliction made her admission all the more relatable to him.

"The next day a man approached me. He knew of my nightmare, he was able to describe its every detail. He told me I had a power, that only he could teach me how to use it...that if I refused him, that all that I had dreamed of would come to pass. He told me to search my feelings, and I would find his words to be true. And they were...in a way."

"Was he...he was a Sith?" It scared him to say it, to connect the dots that would reveal to him the truth about Padmé. "Like the tattooed man?"

"He was. The Sith master told me truth, from a certain point of view. I did not understand his deception until much later, that he himself was the darkness I dreamt of...that he would have been the cause of all my suffering."

A shiver ran down Anakin's spine as he tried to process all of his conflicting thoughts. Based on what Obi-Wan had already told him about the dark warrior that murdered Qui-Gon, it jarred him that Padmé would have anything to do with anyone associated with that infernal group. But any hesitations he had about his new friend was overwhelmed by a instinctive fear for her, that they would hurt her.

"What happened to him?" The way Padmé spoke about the Master, it seemed like he was already a thing of the past.

"He is no longer a problem for any of us," Padmé answered coldly, even gleefully.

"You killed him."

" _We_ killed him," she said proudly. It was appropriate that it was just the two of them in the throne room, together. With Maul gone as well, slain by the Jedi, she was now the final remnant of the thousands year old Order. The future of the Sith would now be shaped by a young eighteen year old girl and, if the Force willed it, if she willed it, the powerful boy before her who had unwittingly helped her betray her master.

"We? I helped?"

Rather than answer immediately, Padmé walked over to her desk. "Remember on the ride to Coruscant? When I was asking you how the ship worked? The navigation, the hyperdrive?"

"Yeah...," Anakin's eyes went wide. "You crashed the ship on purpose!" It had been a jarring experience for him, going from being a slave, to meeting Padmé, to winning the Boonta Eve Classic, to getting freed, facing a Sith Lord, blowing up a Trade Federation Control ship and, in the middle of all that, being a part of an accident whose consequences rang far across the galaxy, when their transport broke just before landing and accidentally crushed to death the Supreme Chancellor and Senator Palpatine from Padmé's planet. Except now he knew it wasn't an accident.

He saw something float out of the corner of his eye. To his further surprise, Padmé was levitating what looked to be a lightsaber in the air just above her hand. So she had Jedi powers too...except she was their enemy. His enemy?

"Senator Palpatine, so long as he lived, was the greatest threat ever presented to this galaxy. His death freed many worlds from a terrible fate..and it freed me. And you. Chancellor Valorum's death was an unfortunate side-effect of what had to be done."

Padmé floated the lightsaber over to the boy. He looked at her, seeking permission, and with a subtle nod she gave it to him, and Anakin took the Sith weapon from the air. He studied it, noting its simplicity. It was much smaller than Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan's sabers, fitting Padmé's smaller hands, and elegantly curved below its handle.

"You can turn it on," he heard Padmé say to him. It was important that he trust her, that he knew she trusted him, and offering Anakin her weapon, as key to her essence as much as the same weapon was to a Jedi, spoke more than anything she could say in words.

Anakin activated the weapon and stared at the dull red light intently buzzing in front of his face. It was the same color as the other monster's blade, and Obi-Wan had already taught him that red was the color of the Sith, but he felt none of the same hatred or malice from Padmé's saber.

"Palpatine discovered my powers when the Jedi didn't," Padmé said from her throne. Her voice projected impassioned authority, reminding Anakin of her title. "My abilities in the Force are weak compared to him, to Darth Maul...and to you. He used me as a tool to further his plans, but I always suspected that I was merely a means to an end for him. That I was never meant to truly inherit his legacy. Those suspicions were confirmed when Maul attacked us on Tatooine...it was clear that he was training other apprentices, and it was clear that he would covet someone as powerful as you."

He was used to hearing it by now, but it still unnerved Anakin to hear how everyone talked about his powers. He knew he was special, for sure, but the thought that he was more powerful than Qui-Gon, or even Obi-Wan or Padmé, seemed absurd.

"I couldn't let him take you. I will not have him subject you to the same...things...he subjected me to." And Naboo, she thought. Sidious had told her it would be a clean occupation, that the Trade Federation was there only for business. The toll she saw inflicted on her planet, her people, said otherwise. She saw Anakin still studying her behind the glint of her blade, and she felt his confusion.

"You may strike me down if you wish," Padmé said, leaning her bare neck ever slightly forward. "Shiraya knows I deserve it for my sins, what I condemned my own people to, and the Jedi will applaud you for eliminating the last of the Sith."

"No," Anakin nearly shrieked. He deactivated her lightsaber immediately and, ignoring protocol, ran to her throne to hand her back her blade. "I...I could never do that Padmé. No matter what you are, I...I couldn't." He wanted to say that he loved her, but it would be a foolish thing for a boy to say to a Queen. "If he lied to you...then you didn't know?"

"I should have known better. Part of me always suspected the worst, but I didn't listen."

Padmé cupped her hand over the right cheek of the boy standing before her. She could feel his power, she could feel their connection, long established and far stronger than the one between Anakin and his new so called Master from the Jedi. The power was so tantalizing, and it took all her self control not to take its reigns that very second and wield it as if it were hers, but she stopped herself, remembering that there was a human being, an innocent boy, behind those powers, one she happened to care for despite everything Darth Sidious had done to train those feelings out of her.

"What happens now," Anakin asked in a whisper. He definitely did not want to go back to the Jedi. He would never reveal Padmé's secret to them, but he didn't think he could bring himself to lie to them. Master Obi-Wan would be able to dig the truth out of him, and if not, one of the beings that sat on that high council.

"You could turn me into the Jedi..."

"I wouldn't!"

"You can go back with the Jedi and pretend this never happened..."

"I don't think I can...," Anakin said, faltering. Did this mean his door to the Jedi was closed forever?

"What happens now is your choice, Anakin." Was she really offering him a true choice though, or was it lightly manipulative in the same way Qui-Gon had offered the newly freed slave the choice on Tatooine? She was glad of her guilt, as it was another sign that Sidious had not murdered the girl she once was.

"I don't want anything bad to happen to you, Padmé," Anakin finally said after some consideration. "If that means saying no to Obi-Wan, then..." If that meant returning to Tatooine, returning to a life of slavery...he didn't want to think about it, but he knew he was willing to make that sacrifice.

"You can stay on Naboo of course," Padmé said warmly, both her tone and the meaning of her words washing over him like a gentle breeze. "Your heroic actions have more than entitled you to a permanent lordship and retainer here."

"Really," Anakin asked, wide eyed. It amazed Padmé that even after all this, he truly did not seem to comprehend his own self worth. She would make him appreciate himself, she decided. Padmé took his left hand in hers, her own hand soft and delicate, his prematurely worn from years toiling in the desert.

"And I can train you, teach you to harness your powers, and you will grow to be more powerful than any Jedi."

"In the Dark Side? But...we won't be evil, like your master, will we?"

"No," said Padmé firmly. She was not Sidious, and she swore she would never be. "We would be all that is left of the Sith. We would be the future of the Sith Order. And we can make it whatever we want it to be." To be honest, she still hadn't seriously considered what she wanted to do with her powers yet. An idea came to her. "We can make the galaxy right, in the ways the Jedi never can. We can free the slaves, just like in your dreams, we can go back to Tatooine and free your mother."

"Really? That would be...wizard!" For the first time since he left his mother behind, Padmé saw hope light up in Anakin's clear blue eyes. He had asked Obi-Wan several times already about his mom, but the young Jedi knight seemed to evade his questions, lecturing instead about letting go of his past and being mindful of the future. Yet the Sith would offer so much more than the Jedi were willing to begrudge, though it wasn't really the Sith...it was Padmé.

Padmé closed her eyes, recalling a dark memory. "If I were my master, now would be when I revealed myself as my true self. As Darth Mirayya. And I would have you bow to me, and bestow upon you your Sith title, Darth...," and she was surprised the name came so easily to her, "...Vader."

She opened her eyes, and as Anakin drowned himself into those bottomless brown pools, those eyes speaking to him in the voice of the nice and friendly young girl that he already knew he loved in ways he could not comprehend, the opposite of the darkness from the other Sith warrior.

"But I don't care about those kriffing Sith traditions," Padmé continued, interrupting his thoughts. "You will always be Anakin to me, and I hope I will always be Padmé to you. I would be your teacher, not your master, and when the day comes that you have learned all you can from me, we will not be master and apprentice, but friends, and...partners." She took his other hand and kissed his forehead chastely, yet in that moment she saw in her mind an essence of the awesome, imposing, powerful man that Anakin Skywalker would become. She saw them standing together, at the center of the entire galaxy, and felt a lust that she had never felt before, and above all, she felt his overwhelming power. Their overwhelming power. As she broke contact, her skin crawled in delightful ways, and she knew that Anakin had felt something similar. "I have foreseen it."

She could see his answer in his eyes before he spoke it. She could feel it in the Force.

"I want...that," he said, speaking to the same vague visions the Force had imparted to both of them, speaking to feelings and a future he could not begin to describe in words.

"Then we will have it all." They were both still so young, Padmé, Darth Mirayya, contemplated. Children, really, both of them. And yet one day they would reshape the galaxy to their will. The children will inherit the future.


	2. Chapter 2

_Five years later:_

Anakin had always figured that the day he stepped into Jabba's palace would be the day he breathed his last. The vile Hutt did, after all, possess a de facto dominion over the entire planet of Tatooine, and especially over its slave population. He had heard stories of several in Mos Espa who had been summoned before the gangster king of this section of the Outer Rim, all of them fellow slaves, and all their stories ending with some gruesome fate before the cruel eyes of the criminal overlord. What the Jedi didn't understand, when he had encountered them so many years ago, was that Republic law, the idea of justice favoring the righteous and the meek, did not exist on Tatooine, that those like Jabba stood atop an inverted pyramid where the worst preyed upon the innocent and weak, and only those who sold their souls to seek the underworld's favor stood a gundark's chance at surviving on that wretched world.

But Padmé understood. She understood because her master had shown her, had taught her far worse, and she understood because she, out of all the people in the galaxy, actually listened to him, and believed and trusted him. As their bodies flew through the air towards each other, he barely had a chance to kiss his beloved on her cheek as she careened sideways across the floor, cutting two Gamorrean guards in half with one swift cut of her blade as she did so. Spying several more running towards her with axes raised, Anakin used the Force to violently shove them across the room, their bodies shattering the walls of the palace as they were slammed to their deaths.

"You're so powerful," Padmé hissed seductively next to him. Few Sith, not even Maul, could have killed with so little effort as a simple Force shove, especially at such a young age. "Embrace it. Let it feed you, strengthen you." She dodged one bolt from a Rodian assassin on the other side of the throne room, and deflected away several more with her lightsaber, purposefully not hitting back at her assailant. He deserved far worse.

Anakin admired her form, her black leather suit clinging tightly to her body, as she swung her torso about, pivoting low on her hips left and right as she piloted each swing of her lightsaber with lethal purpose. Her hair, let free and loose, flew wildly about her as she fought, and Anakin could smell its scent even amidst the chaos of their battle. He thanked the Gods for the thousandth time in gratitude...there was no one, absolutely no one in the galaxy luckier than he.

"I love you," he mouthed to her, his eyes catching hers for the half second before she diverted her attention towards another cluster of blaster bolts. Padmé gestured towards the Rodian with her eyes, and Anakin nodded in acknowledgement. While his lover continued to provide him cover, he focused his attention at the bodyguard, holding his hand out and fingers together in his direction even as he continued to deflect shots away with the saber in his other hand. The Rodian found himself lifted into the air against his will and gasping for air. As he struggled, Anakin concentrated his thoughts on the beatings he remembered receiving while he was still owned by Gardulla. He remembered seeing his mother come into his room with dark bruises around her eyes, and bruises elsewhere in her body her tattered robes failed to hide. He thought of Palpatine, the Sith Master he had never met and yet helped kill, and he remembered the tales Padmé told of him, of how he trained her, of how he tortured her, of all the other indignations he had forced upon her, all supposedly for the sake of her training. The pathetic, greedy, squirming, screaming life form before him would do the same thing to her if he could, and as Anakin swore that he would never let that happen, the Rodian screamed and breathed his last before crumpling into a fetal position while still suspended midair. He released his fingers, and the villain dropped to the ground.

"Ani!" He heard his name echo shrilled through the chamber. "Below you."

Just as she spoke, he felt a rumbling and barely managed to jump aside as the floor slid out under his feet. Unable to maintain his balance, he plunged into the cavernous chamber below, barely catching himself on the edge of the floor pane with one hand. Hearing, sensing, smelling the rancid creature below him, he propelled his body up through the Force, feeling the support of Padmé as she assisted his jump back onto the throne room level.

"Mind your surroundings," she scolded, winking at him. "You owe me one."

"And how will I make it up to you, milady?" Anakin ducked, barely dodging the head of an axe that would have taken off his head. Subtly manipulating the Force behind him, he took control of the sharp projectile and accelerated it into the door way behind him, pushing it to cut through the heads of three dug guards running in trying to salvage the situation. He flung his lightsaber forward, cutting in half the Gamorrean who had thrown it at him, before calling his weapon effortlessly back to his hand.

"I can think of a few ways," Padmé said evilly. "With your tongue especially."

"I can live with that."

"You're gonna eat my ass all the way to Naboo, Skywalker."

Anakin looked across the room with her with a crooked eye, smirking as he raised his eyebrow. "Oh, it's going to be one of those nights, huh?" Even as he savored the thought in his mind, he raised his hand up at the ceiling, pulling down chunks of rocks and cement, dropping them into the rancor pit and crushing the beast. "Naboo is hardly that far from here. Maybe we can take a detour to Utapau."

Padmé licked her lips. "Plot a course around the Unknown Regions." She heard a shriek as Jabba pushed his Twi'lek dancer towards the pit, and Padmé leapt, catching the slave girl before she fell. With two swift strokes of her blade, she cut through the chain that held the girl, then sliced in half the offending tail that had tried to murder her.

"Swing through the Deep Core," Anakin said, ignoring the Hutt's screams of pain.

"And back to Naboo," continued Padmé as she let go of the Twi'lek and backflipped herself back to where Anakin stood, "all without your tongue ever leaving my asshole."

He reached in and kissed her again, this time a quick peck on her lips that left both of them longing. "I should get in trouble more often."

They both heard and felt the presence of someone approaching in the hallway. A bounty hunter covered in Mandalorian body armor ran into the room, shooting flames at them. Quickly, Padmé raised her hand, deflecting and projecting the flames back at their assailant. He screamed as his own flames cooked him alive and Anakin, taking advantage of the distraction, squeezed his hands together, crushing his armor back into the body of its owner. His screams of pain intensified as the metal tore into his flesh, spilling even more blood onto the corpse adorned floor.

"Best bounty hunter in the galaxy my ass," Padmé remarked as the screams died down.

"Delicious ass," Anakin added, licking his lips suggestively. "Greatest ass in the annals of Sith history."

"Oh? The things I heard about Darth Plagueis...that ass didn't quit."

"By Shiraya," Anakin swore. Like a Naboo, Padmé thought proudly. "That was not an image I wanted in my head."

They were almost alone now, just the two of them alongside the terrified slave girl, a room full of bodies, and a bleeding, wounded Hutt. Anakin surveyed their damage, and looked eagerly at Padmé, waiting for her approval. She nodded, proud of her student and what they had accomplished on this mission, and extended her hand to him. He took it, and they both turned their attention to their last remaining foe, who had not stopped screaming obscenities at his mysterious intruders the entire time. Ignoring Jabba's obscenities, they each raised their one free hand, Anakin's left and Padmé's right, and from it shot Sith lightning at the Hutt.

"I love you so much," Anakin said to his lover. It meant a lot to him, that she would devote so much energy and resources to eliminating the scourge of his home planet. She cared, and they were doing for Tatooine good that the backwater planet had never seen happen.

"Truly," Padmé whispered ecstatically, as if she were making love rather than exterminating a criminal, gripping his tightly even as she intensified her attack on Jabba. "Deeply."

As the hutt breathed his last, they turned to look at the Twi'lek girl, who stood frozen in fear having watched what had just transpired. Both Anakin and Padmé pulled up their hoods, and the girl's last vision of the mysterious woman's gleaming golden yellow eyes would forever be engrained in her memory. Padmé probed her body with the Force until she found the location of her inhibitor chip, subtly manipulating it with the Force to deactivate it. She then reached gently into now former slave's mind, blurring out her memory of her and Anakin's facial features, but leaving the rest of what she witnessed in place, so all that she remembered were two shadows with yellow eyes tearing through the Palace.

"You are free now," Padmé hissed from underneath her hood. "Tell the slaves what happened here. Tell the masters too, that this will be their fate if they continue their ways."

* * *

"I wish we could have visited my mother," Anakin said as Padmé emerged from the fresher. She slid back into the bed with him, pressing her naked body against his.

"Can you not bring up your mother right after we fuck," Padmé scolded playfully. They had returned to Tatooine and bought Shmi's freedom not long after Anakin had begun his training. She preferred to stay on Tatooine, however, having just recently met a man named Cliegg Lars, a moisture farmer from the other side of the planet. They visited each other frequently, Anakin completely delighted with his new family even though Owen, Cliegg's son, couldn't have been more different from him. This time, however, they had to avoid visiting the Lars homestead in order to keep secret the identities of those who took down Jabba's complex. It would be too much if the complete destruction of the Hutt Palace just happened to coincide with their presence on the planet. Shmi knew nothing of her son's training and Padmé's secret identity...the only other person who knew everything, besides Anakin and Padmé themselves, was her sister Sola, and they planned to keep things that way.

"Sorry," Anakin apologized sheepishly. "Kinda kills the mood, doesn't it."

Anakin rather preferred their bedquarters on their ship. Here they could be open with their relationship, rather than trying to hide from all the handmaidens running about in the palace. He had set up the autopilot and now had hours of spare time before they landed back on Naboo, precious hours of just them, together.

"We'll see her next month when the harvest is over." The Lars-Skywalkers had their own wing of the Palace by now, and it endeared Padmé to see Anakin, so recently pulled from the same humble beginnings, bask in the awe of his family, especially Owen, every time they set foot in the building both of them had called home for five years now. Padmé stroked his arm softly. His muscles were growing, and he was filling into his wiry frame now. While physically he was still really way too young for her tastes, she could see hints of the man he would become, the man she saw in her visions. She still felt guilty constantly for taking advantage of him at this raw age, but she had her needs as a woman, and he had clearly been infatuated with her from the moment they met. They were meant to be together, they both knew this was written by the Force itself, but Padmé wasn't going to merely wait celibate until Anakin reached his majority. Nor could she hurt him by taking other lovers in the meantime. She was still a Sith after, and the Sith took what they wanted. Padmé ultimately wanted the man he would become, but she would take the boy he was until then. And Force, even at this tender age, she still wanted him so much...she immersed herself wholly into his essence, his energy, his exuberance, his power. She wanted his everything, she wanted his soul, and he was obviously eager to oblige her anything she wanted.

"Thanks so much for this," Anakin said again, brushing his hand up and down his lover's bare back. "The Hutts have been a scourge on Tatooine as long as anyone can remember, and no one's ever cared enough to do anything about it. I've known friends who have suffered greatly because of Jabba."

"It's the right thing to do. It's about time justice came to the Outer Rim. This is a good first step." They weren't going to be able to end slavery on the planet overnight, but taking down Jabba would improve the lives of many on the planet in tangible ways. They would return of course, with Tatooine and many other lawless planets in the Outer Rim offering prime opportunities for Anakin's training, but to truly end slavery there and in other worlds would require their permanent presence. They would have to govern, and Amidala had enough on her plate already as Queen of Naboo, and there was only so much they could do without attracting the attentions of the Republic or the Jedi. For now, there were limits to their power. For now.

They were interrupted in their reverie by the sound of the Queen's comm.

"Sabé." Padmé frowned. "What could she want?"

The holo of her chief handmaiden appeared, and she looked away uncomfortably at her Queen and Anakin's very casual state. She was the only person in the Palace to know of their rather illicit relationship, and the only person period outside of, again, Sola, whom Padmé hid nothing from.

"Milady," Sabé started, looking rather embarrassed as she did so. "So sorry to interrupt your vacation."

"Don't worry about it. It must be important." While she knew about her love life, Sabé was not privy to the whole Sith thing, and she had no idea what Anakin and her were actually up to on their many 'vacations'.

"Master Dooku is back again, and demanding another audience with the Queen. What should I tell him?"

Padmé sighed in exasperation. This particular Jedi was persistent indeed, if a thorn in her side. He had been Qui-Gon's former master, and his old Padawan's death had been hard on the old man's psyche. She had already granted him an audience twice, the Jedi grilling her about every aspect of the events that led up to the late Jedi's fate in the bowels of the Palace. Dooku was crafty and sharp, and each encounter drained her mentally as she parried off all of his questions. She was thankful indeed that she had learned her shielding from Sidious, that having been, she thought, the late Sith master's greatest skill. While the Jedi never voiced his suspicions, Padmé suspected that they were too close to the truth than she was comfortable with, especially when he kept bringing up Anakin, about whether truly the Chosen One as Qui-Gon had believed, and questioning the logic of his inexplicable decision to turn down his Jedi training in its infancy. Sometimes Padmé suspected that the old man was fishing for an invite for himself, as if he wanted her to present the same offer she had given Anakin five years ago. That would be impossible, of course. The idea that she, still a fairly young woman by galactic standards, could take on an apprentice of Dooku's age and caliber would be absurd and, while a man of his experience would have his uses, she barely had enough time to devote to Anakin, whether it be to his training, or their ample other activities.

"See if we can schedule one tomorrow afternoon," she answered resignedly. "Tell him fifteen minutes, that's all the time I can free up."

"Yes, milady."

"Thanks, Sabé."

As she turned off the comlink, Padmé felt him hardening again under her stomach. There were certainly advantages to dating a teenager. Sensing her lustful thoughts, Anakin flipped her over in one casual move, admiring her brown eyes as she squealed in surprise and delight. While he was constantly in awe of her powers as a master of the Sith, he preferred her eyes like this.

"Milady," he said, mimicking her haidmaiden and stand in. "Let's take your mind off that dusty old man, shall we?"

* * *

Extra TM Anakin Skywalker: Thanks for reading! Padmé could definitely be more evil, but in this story, Sidious never trained her as a serious apprentice, but more as a tool on Naboo to further his ends, so she was never as fully immersed in the Dark Side as she could have been. That, and her inherent goodness being more than your typical Sith acolyte, helped her not get completely lost in the Dark.


	3. Chapter 3

_Three years later:_

The hum of four lightsabers echoed simultaneously across the room, red clashing against red and green clashing with blue. Just as quickly, the order reversed, and Padmé gritted her teeth as she struggled to fend off each one of Anakin's blows. He advanced with every strike, pushing her back against the wall, yet she knew that he was holding back. He had become more powerful than her, both physically and in his connection to channel the Force, and pushing that power to its potential would give him a sizable, if not decisive advantage during their duels. But he was purposefully prolonging it, seeking to win, as she taught him, with his wiles, rather than brute strength.

He switched tactics, slashing his two sabers vertically through air at her. His blue blade feinted at her shoulder before crisscrossing her down towards her opposite knee, and as she felt her back brush up against the wall of the small sparring room, bringing both her lightsabers down to fend off the blow, Anakin brought his red blade swiftly to her neck.

"Yield," he commanded, unable to hide his obvious satisfaction over his victory.

"You think you won," Padmé taunted, spitting at her opponent. Anakin's smile widened when he felt the spit land around his lips. He responded by licking his lips. Anakin loved how frisky Darth Mirayya got when she was cornered. Suddenly, a visual sensation overwhelmed his mind. He saw the two of them making love in their bed in Varykino, two bodies tangled up in one, both of them screaming in pleasure. Momentarily distracted, he did not sense her kick viciously at his legs until he felt the pain, and then his body tumbling backwards onto the floor. As he landed, he felt the Force pin both his arms to the ground, followed by Padmé's hands clutching his forearms tightly and rendering both his lightsabers useless. With both her hands occupied, the Queen of Naboo and reigning mistress of the Sith levitated one blade, her green one, over the teenager's neck.

"Yield," she hissed gleefully.

"That was dirty," Anakin groaned in pain, his face making no effort to betray how perturbed he was by his mental error. He tried to kick his knees up at her, but she had his entire body choked in a stringent Force lock. He strained against it, trying to break through, but found himself unable to concentrate, not with the sight and feel of Padmé straddling over him, right upon his most vulnerable spot.

"Many will fight dirtier. Let nothing distract you, whether or not you are fighting. Our mere existence in this galaxy is a fight, and our wits must be sharper by a billionfold for us to survive."

She deactivated her weapons and let them drop to the ground. Their adoption of an additional blade added new dimensions to their training and, Padmé hoped, would render them an advantage were they ever to find themselves facing the Jedi, though she wasn't quite sure how that would come about. She liked the feel of their new lightsabers as well, having snuck onto Ilum with Anakin several years prior to steal the kyber crystals they needed. She was tired of seeing red, and why should the Jedi hold a monopoly on the best crystals?

As Anakin deactivated the lightsabers in his hand, she felt his other saber activating. Force, he was so predictable, but it was her fault too, the image she projected into his head clearly having riled the young man up. And to be honest, she had worked herself up as well. She pounced down onto him like a nexu, licking the side of his face ravenously and, his hands finally free, Anakin pulled her in and swore that this time he would suck the tongue right out of her mouth. They ripped each other's training robes off yet again, half with the Force, half with their own hands, and Padmé wondered when one of the palace account clerks would get suspicious from the endless inventory of gray robes she ordered constantly. As she rode him, both her hands clutched tightly with his in between them, fingers as intertwined as their bodies, they immersed themselves in each other's essence, truly becoming one both in body and in the Force, light intermingling with dark, sheer, unquenchable lust with love. Here, their bond, their connection, was complete.

"Ani?" He could feel the hesitation in her voice as they held each other in their bed later that night. She was never nervous, never this unsure of herself.

"What is it, angel?" Anakin tried to send her waves of reassurance through the Force. She felt guilty about something. She was too good to be guilty. She may be a deadly Sith, but she would always be his angel.

"There's something I need to tell you. Something I did not tell you before."

"Oh?"

"The nightmare I had, before I met Sidious..."

"You told me you feel that darkness no longer. That the horrible fate Sidious would have visited upon the galaxy will no longer happen."

"I know. That holds true." Every day she felt the palpable relief from the death of her former master. The Dark Side was no longer overwhelming. Though it was still there for her and Anakin to beckon at their will, it was no longer so pervasive, so invasive. "The dark figure I told you about. How it suffocated me. I never told you who he was."

"I assumed he was Sidious." Anakin looked down at his fiancé's mesmerizing brown eyes in confusion. The way she looked up at him, it made her seem so weak, so vulnerable. Again, he was not used to seeing Padmé like this, and he didn't like it. Padmé was the strongest woman he knew, comparable to his mother if it weren't for her added powers, and she was a Sith master, a Queen...a goddess in his mind, and it hurt him that she would ever feel this way. She had protected him for so long, but Anakin realized that as he grew in his powers, their roles were bound to reverse. He could live with that, if Darth Mirayya could.

"No." She tousled a strand of his golden hair between her fingers, anxious about what she had to say. "It was you."

He recoiled. "I could never!"

"I know you wouldn't," she said, stroking his chest gently to calm him. "Not here. Not now. But if Sidious were ever allowed to manipulate you. If the Jedi were ever allowed to break you...our love for each other would never change, but they would have pushed us against each other, twisted us until we were no longer in control of ourselves."

Anakin sat up in the bed, his body still stiff from the news. "I will never let any harm come to you Padmé. If anyone so touches you the wrong way..."

"Shh," Padmé whispered, rising as well and nestling her small head upon his shoulder, "it's okay. I am strong. We are strong. It was a falsehood created by a peddler of lies, and it will never come to be."

"Why are you telling me this now?" He was still agitated, the thought that he could ever hurt his beloved disturbing him to his core. He understood why she had withheld this information from him when he was younger...he probably would have ran off to Tatooine or even deeper into Wild Space to avoid ever seeing, and potentially hurting, Padmé. Or, he would have just as likely plunged himself off the palace waterfall.

"Because we are to be married in days. Now, there are truly no secrets between us, before we become man and wife."

"I will never hurt you," Anakin said again. "I would never allow myself to do that. Especially now that I know...I'd sooner kill myself than hurt you, I promise you."

"I know, Ani. And I'd die before I allow any harm to come to you either. I trust you, Anakin. Completely, with my heart, with my soul...with my everything. Soon, I will have nothing left to teach you. We will truly be partners then. Equals. And as equals, and as Siths, we need to always be completely open and honest with each other. I hid this from you for years, and I apologize."

"No secrets. No lies. I promise."

Anakin slumped back down onto his pillow. So many things were happening at the same time, so many changes. They had made their relationship public a year ago, not long after he had turned sixteen, the age of majority on Naboo. And while many on the planet, and even the core world holonets, had been scandalized by their romance, most on Naboo accepted it quickly, having long gotten used to the obvious and public friendship between two of the planet's most revered heroes. Soon, her second and final term would come to an end, and then they could make official their love. Padmé did not want the pomp of an official marriage of state, and doing so as a private citizen would allow them the luxury of a small ceremony out in the Lake Country, with only those they cared about the most alongside them.

"I dreamed that we would be together, long before I first set eyes upon you that day in Watto's shop. And yet, I can still hardly bring myself believe it. A slave, marrying a Queen." He turned his head at his future wife, feeling every bit the vulnerable seventeen year boy he still was. "Pinch me, so I know this not just another dream of mine."

She pinched his arm, and leaned in to bit him gently on his upper lip.

"There is nothing more real than this."

* * *

On the last day of her reign, Queen Amidala surveyed the surroundings of her throne room wistfully. While her time as monarch had begun tumultuously, the last eight years had proved fruitful indeed. The Force had given her the opportunity to rid herself of her master, and it had brought her Anakin. She had done much for her people, and Padmé hoped that she had mended some of the damages the younger Darth Mirayya's naivete had allowed Palpatine to wreak on her planet. Soon Jamillia, the new Queen-in-waiting, would arrive for the official ceremony, but for now, she would fend off in this office the Jedi for one last time.

"I hear rumors," Dooku intoned in the deep voice that Padmé had grown accustomed to over the years, "that your successor intends to name you to the Senate."

"You've spent too much time on Naboo, master Jedi," Padmé replied with a smile. While he was still a nuisance at times, she rather enjoyed their conversations now and then, relishing the challenge of verbally sparring with someone who might very well be the most peculiar Jedi she had ever met. "Your sources are clearly better than mine."

"Come now, child, let's not play this game. This is common knowledge, even among the masses." The way he said the last word betrayed the slightest connotation of contempt, and Padmé had learned over the years that this man was did not embody the official Jedi doctrines of universal compassion. Certainly not like his former student...arrogant as Qui-Gon could be, there was no doubt that he did care.

"Eight years of service is a long time, more than a decade if you add in my years as Princess of Theed. Even you'll agree, Master Dooku, that I deserve some rest. Once the Ceremony of Transfer is complete today, the only thing I will have on my mind is to marry my dear Anakin and spend time with our families."

"Ah yes, young Skywalker. Still such a shame he turned down Obi-Wan's offer to train him. Even now I sense that he would make for a great Jedi Knight, worthy of the recognition in the archives of our fine order, though, I suppose, being wed to a former Queen such as yourself is not a bad consolation prize." His ever present and ever unspoken accusation hung in the air between them. Dooku had suspected their romance long before it had been announced to the public, and he suspected, he knew, that the young Queen was still hiding something from him, from the world, and it centered around the untapped prodigy that was Anakin Skywalker.

"Your Force works in mysterious ways, master Jedi. To think, it guided us using the fluke of a broken hyperdrive and the whims of your old Padawan to lead me to the man who would eventually make an honest woman out of me." Her tone was diplomatic, her words cordial, but her eyes said dangerously, _back off, Jedi. He is mine now. He will never belong to you._

"The Force whispers to all of us, Jedi or not. I sense your role in the galaxy is not yet complete, that there are many accomplishments yet ahead for Amidala, many more arenas to conquer." _I know you are more than what you claim to be, woman, your ambitions thinly disguised by your shallow play of humility._

"Love and the companionship of my Anakin is the only arena that matters to me. I suspect you are colored by your own perceptions, Master Jedi. I have heard rumors about you too. About how you really feel about politicians, about the Republic you serve. And the Senators who guide it." Though she still leaned towards avoiding any unnecessary complications, the possibilities this unconventional Jedi presented to the future intrigued her. His politics were unique among the Jedi, and she sensed that his feelings towards his own order differed from his brethren as well. Darth Sidious certainly would not have hesitated in taking advantage of this.

"Some do mean well, of course. Supreme Chancellor Antilles is an idealist. He does what he can, but I fear he does not have what it takes to quell the growing dissension. I fear what's to come, once his term is inevitably over."

 _And what would happen if I asked you to dispose of the Senate entirely_ , Padmé wondered. Dooku was known as an idealist as well, and there was something that whispered in the Force that this Jedi would go far for his beliefs, given the right circumstances. Instead, she observed innocently, "you seem to fear a lot for a Jedi. Obi-Wan once told me that Jedi do not feel fear."

The senior Jedi master bristled uncomfortably. "Figure of speech, your majesty. You remember much about us, despite all your duties as Queen."

"It is my duty as Queen to remember such things."

Dooku rose, sensing now was the good time to end their interview. "Once again, I thank profusely your majesty's hospitality and patience with this old Jedi. And please, give my best to your family and your husband-to-be."

Padmé rose, shaking his hand. "A pleasure, as always."

He turned to leave, then turned back to the Queen. "I trust you will find happiness in your domestic life...but were you to find yourself on the capital world, feel free to drop me a line."

"Is this what all Jedi masters ask of a soon-to-be married woman, Master Dooku?"

"Please don't take it the wrong way, your majesty," Dooku protested. "I merely wish to return you the favor for all the kindness you have shown me on Naboo over these very difficult years. The company of the same masters does get weary, after all, and I do know of a place that serves the most exquisite green leaf tea from my native Serenno."

"If our paths were to meet again, then I would be delighted...so long as your intentions are pure."

"As pure as the great Amidala herself, I assure you," Dooku said, clearly pleased by his own cleverness.

* * *

"So what happens when two Sith marry," Sola asked playfully next to her. "Do you touch lightsaber tips, or something?"

"I'm not sure it's ever happened before," Padmé said. The hair parlor was small, but the only one close to Varykino, so the bride and her sister and matron-of-honor were the only two being attended to by the droids, with the other handmaidens at the lake house awaiting their turn. "I imagine Plagueis and Sidious would have just tortured each other with Sith lightning before tying the knot."

"This is so wrong. I shouldn't know so much already about these Sith names you casually drop in front of me."

"Your little sister shouldn't be a Sith Master, and she probably shouldn't be marrying a seventeen year old boy, but here we are." And it was certainly unusual, especially on Naboo, for two sisters to be gossiping about the Sith on the younger's wedding day.

"What are you actually going to do when you get to Coruscant?"

As Dooku and most of Naboo had expected, Jamillia selected her predecessor to succeed Sio Bibble as the sector's next Senator. That was what Padmé had planned all along when she picked the doddering former Governor to succeed Palpatine. While the old man had a good heart, he was a homebody who hated Coruscant and constantly complained about wanting to return to Naboo, so all Padmé had to do was to use his lack of ambition to time his eventual retirement to occur along with the end of her second term. Per her official statement, Padmé accepted the position reluctantly, provided she had time to go on her honeymoon before she took the seals of office. She had heard Alderaan was beautiful, but she also intended to meet its Senator, one Bail Prestor Organa whom she had foreseen would play a key role in the years to come. One, ideally, that she could manipulate to her ends.

"Sidious would kill me if he were still alive, but I honestly haven't given it much thought yet."

"My little sister, not planning ahead? That'd be harder to believe than the idea she's a Sith lord."

"Lady," Padmé corrected. "But it's the truth. Any spare time I've had I've spent training Anakin."

"Oh, I'll bet you enjoyed _training_ him."

"It had its perks," Padmé said, trying hard not to blush. "We still want to free the slaves and remake the Outer Rim, of course, as well as fix everything that's wrong with the Republic..."

"Very modest goals indeed," commented Sola sarcastically.

"...so I guess we'll definitely have to take control of the Republic. As for the Jedi, I don't know..."

"Aren't you supposed to hate them?"

"I am. And the Grand Plan of Darth Bane has always called for their extinction...but I just not that sure about that part. I mean, they're misguided and all, but most of them aren't all that malicious," she trailed off, thinking about the one she kept meeting that could be.

"No, because you're supposed to be the malicious one."

Padmé ignored Sola's barb. "Qui-Gon Jinn, insufferable as he could be, did give his life for Naboo, so I guess I'll have to hold that in the Jedi's favor. And I think Ani still has a soft spot for Obi-Wan."

"You know what," Sola said, turning her head to look at her sister as the hair droid buzzed out in frustration, "I think the two of you are the worst Sith Lords ever. In history. Even worse than Skere Kaan."

"You take that back!" Padmé squeezed her fingers to playfully Force choke her sister, but all Sola felt was a light tickle on her neck. They both giggled.

"This feels nice, actually. If the whole galactic conquest thing doesn't work out, the two of you should open up a Force massage parlor or something." Force, she was probably the only person in the history of the galaxy to be able to constantly taunt a Sith and survive.

"What do you think Ani starts the foreplay with every night," Padmé teased evilly.

"I thought it was assplay," Sola shot right back at her. She was no prude, after all.

"He's a Sith. He can manage more than one thing at a time."

Sola sighed. "The things I wish I could talk Darred into." Her husband was probably the least exciting person in bed she had ever been with, but the problem was that she loved everything else about him, apart from his lack of any prowess after dark.

"My offer to mind trick him still stands."

"No." As the droid finished the last of her braids, Sola looked over affectionately at her sister, remembering the day when she had revealed her secret for the first time. Sola had thought it a joke at the time, but everything became more than real after Padmé started levitating all the pots and pans in their kitchen. Those powers she could never understand, but in time Sola got used to seeing Padmé as just her little sister again, albeit with rather peculiar tastes in hobbies. And, as she found out a few years later, in men...well, technically Anakin was still years away from becoming a man.

"I'm going to miss you when leave for Coruscant. Don't forget about us, okay?"

"Of course I won't forget my family! I won't deny we'll be busy, but Anakin and I will visit as much as we can." Padmé reached over and took her sister's hand. "Besides, who else is going to spoil Ryoo and Pooja rotten?"

Sola rolled her eyes. "Everyone in this kriffin family, it seems."

* * *

Do Sith lords cry? Darth Mirayya did on the day of her wedding. She felt her eyes welling up when she met her dad and he took her arm in his. She felt unable to hold them in much longer when they walked outside of the house and saw her family, friends, and handmaidens gathered on the veranda overlooking the lake, eagerly awaiting her entrance. She couldn't stop the tears and she couldn't stop smiling when Ryoo ran shyly up to them, spreading flower pedals in their path before running hurriedly back to her mother, who held the one year old Pooja in her arms. And she absolutely burst into tears when she saw Anakin, dressed impeccably in a blue silk tunic, hair groomed slickly like the young Naboo noble, which he was thanks to her patronage.

He looked even more nervous than she was, as Shmi clutched his arm with both her hands, comforting him. Padmé had never seen her soon to be mother-in-law look so grand, wearing a cream colored gown whose color matched her own, as well as Sola and Sabé's. She had gone out of her way, sending the best tailors on the planet all the way to Tatooine to get his family custom fitted for this occasion, so that they did not feel out of place, and the look on Anakin's face when he saw his mother dressed properly for the first time made it all worth it. While Shmi had expressed concern over her son's youth when they broke the news of their relationship to her, just before it was revealed publicly, she had quickly given them her blessing, saying that she knew that this day would come eventually, and that she wouldn't want anyone else for her son. Owen Lars, meanwhile, wouldn't stop pestering Anakin for days with thousands of questions the young Sith lord would refuse to answer.

She could tell Anakin was getting emotional too, when Owen jabbed his half-brother in the ribs with his elbow. He whispered a quick joke to them, and both of them laughed as Ruwee finally let go of her daughter. He towered over her now, and had to lean down to kiss her after they both recited their custom vows. The two Siths turned around to face the crowd, breathing a sigh of relief that the deed was finally done, and laughed as the people closest to them cheered and applauded the newly married couple. Darth Bane had instituted the lonely existence of the rule of two, but Padmé thought that the Sith had never been stronger than they were, surrounded by their most beloved friends and family, as the sun set on the eve of their greatest adventure yet.

* * *

And that's the end of this portion of the tale. There will be at least one sequel.


End file.
